[Phelps McManus]

Originally Posted by Celebrindal

Yes, but in the past decades, it has a very notable increase.

I remember prayer in school when the Challenger exploded. No one questioned "Under God" in the pledge we said every morning or consciously said Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas. I was too young to notice if judges had the ten commandments on court grounds, but I imagine some did and never got called on it.

But you say there is an increase, so I will take your word for it. What is causing it? Is there some massively successful marketing campaign that is converting the non-believers? Are Christian parents pumping out more kids who are all brought up to embrace Jesus? Personally, I know a lot more people who stopped going to church than those who started, but YMMV.

You've obviously never heard a person supporting intelligent design lecture. They twist facts to denounce evolution. They go under the guise "oh we believe in the scientific method," but that is just bullshit. They offer no theory of inquiry except the belief in the "God of the gaps," which means if we can't explain it, God must've did it!

I assure you that twisting facts to denounce opposition is not unique to the ID vs Evolution debate. As for "God of the gaps", I think you underestimate how much science is based on faith. Faith that some empirical evidence and inductive reasoning won't be disproven by future observations. Humans evolving from monkeys can be observed, but where did the monkeys evolve from and so on? Eventually you reach the first step of evolution and have to wonder where it came from? What do you fill that gap with?

Okay, but do those same people have a problem with In vitro fertilisation? Because the majority of Blastocysts used are discarded. You want morals? How can you justify giving equal rights to something that has 100 cells, to a person who has been burned over 90% of their body and is suffering every single day?

Equal rights? What rights does a Blastocyst have? What are we denying the burn victim?

Deciding who/what lives and what dies, what quality of life people should be guaranteed and at what costs are moral decisions, not religious ones. Just because bible-thumpers all believe one way doesn't mean those who come to the same moral conclusions (on select topics) are bible-thumpers or influenced by religion in any way.

So... we're not fighting against religious extremists in Iraq right now?

Inductive reasoning. We are fighting religious extremists so the war is about religion? Here I thought we were fighting religious extremists because we didn't want them to topple a democracy or we are too prideful to admit defeat. Or perhaps we like fighting them over there rather than over here.

They happen to be extreme about religion, but they could have been extreme about hot dogs for all I care. I wouldn't say the war was fought over hot dogs had that been the case, because one side doesn't really care about that. They only care that they are being threatened.